He said there are surprising similarities between writing scripts and designing buildings.

"You have to invent things for people to do [in screenplays], and you have to work with episodes in architecture and string them together," he said.

Associate Professor of Architecture Preston S. Cohen said many critics acknowledge Koolhaas as the leading architect of his time.

"The force of his thinking is unparalleled," Cohen said. "He's someone you want to play with intellectually."

Cohen and others said that it was "inevitable" that Koolhaas would win the Pritzker Prize.

Chair of the Architecture Department Jorge M. Silvetti, who was also a member of the prize jury, organized a reception today honoring Koolhaas.

Of the several hundred people who attended the reception, the majority of the faculty attendees were from other departments, evidence of Koolhaas's interdisciplinary work, Witte said.

Koolhaas is the 23rd Pritzker Prize laureate and the first from the Netherlands. Past Harvard affiliates who have also won the award are Sert Professor in Architecture Jose R. Moneo, who was the 1996 laureate, and Christian de Portzamparc, a lecturer who won the prize in 1994.